SELECTIONS by L. Foster

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 14, 1858

SELECTIONS.

By L. Foster

OUR EXPOSURE TO JUDGMENTS.

[The following article we take from The Oberlin Evangelist. Although the writer calls the church the bride, whereas the marriage relation is only used to express the union that should exist between Christ and his people who will be guests at the marriage supper of the Lamb, the scathing rebuke which it utters against the nominal churches of the land is worthy of consideration. If we have been called harsh and uncharitable in simply applying to the multiform churches of the land, the term which properly signifies the state they are in, and calling them Babylon, mixture, confusion, what would have been said of us, if we had charged them directly with being "married to the Devil."—Ed.]

BRO. COWLES:—There is nothing more alarming, as indicating that God's signal judgments in moving forward his kingdom, are to center in this land, than the present state of the American church, taken as a body. We noticed in our last that our national sins, with all our light, must be highly provoking to God, and just adverted to the fact that the Church's consenting with, and sustaining, them, was the worst part of that provocation.

But there is something in the church which faithfulness requires us to point to, still back of that connivance with these great sins; which is even more conspicuous than that, if possible, and the real cause of it. It is her virtual repudiation of that relationship which binds her to her great Living Head. It is the practical denial of her sacred espousals and vows to her Lord, to be entirely his. These covenant vows, most solemnly made before God and

man over the blood of her Lord, and sealed with it, have come to be treated as a mere nullity—so much blank paper! This is with the church, the fatal starting point, the head and front of her offending.

Now the covenant of the church which we, as professed Christians, make with our God and Redeemer, is one of entire and unreserved consecration to him, to be his alone, and He on his part, condescends to pledge himself ours. This is the relation in brief. God expresses it thus—I will be your God, and ye shall be my people. And he says to the Church, "I am married unto you—ye shall be for me, and not for another." So Christ speaks of Christians and the Church as his in the most intimate relation—"I in you, and ye in me;" and the Apostle says to such—"Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price." Christ, as the Lamb of God, has given his own blood as the purchase-dowry for the church, and she has become the "bride, the Lamb's wife," wholly his.

Indeed, this covenant relation and consecration of the Christian is necessarily effected or set up in every true conversion to Christ. There is then an entire, unconditional giving up of the whole man to him. If there is any reserve made to self, there is then no conversion, Christ does not, cannot, allow any reserve. The whole man, just as he is, persisting in guilt, and want, is given over to Christ, to be his forever; and right at that point, and that only, he is received; and, as the apostle describes it, "The love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost." That is conversion. There is then and there formed a heart-covenant—a union of hearts. The great heart of Jehovah, (strange it can be so, but so it is,) and the heart of the penitent sinner are united—welded together in the strongest relationship that mortals can know! The reality and strength of any relationship is estimated by the love on which it is founded. That son is no son who has no filial love. That husband is no husband that does not love his wife. But in this relation we have the love of the believer united in Christ with the love of God—nay, swallowed up therein, so that he is justly said to be dead to all other lords, and his life hid with Christ in God. The tie which binds him to his God and Saviour and makes him his has in it the strength of Almighty love! And similar ties from every converted heart in the church, all centering in God, constitute the relationship of the church to her Lord. O how truly and necessarily does the church become the bride, the Lamb's wife, entirely and forever his, in a stronger bond of union than that of all created loves combined!

Then more. The expressed and open covenant of the church with her Lord, or of all her members together in it, is an acknowledgement of this same consecration to him. It is a "fac-simile" of this heart-covenant. The language of their united vows is, "We do this day avouch the Lord Jehovah—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be our God, and we do here most solemnly covenant, before God and man, to be, in all we have and are, entirely and forever his; and do promise, by his grace assisting us, to live only for his service, and glory.

Here we have this heart-relation, and consecration to God, of Christians and the church, brought out and publicly solemnized; and O how intimate; how full; how binding does the union become! It is a real and most sacred espousal of the church to her Lord. It makes him her wedded Head—her supreme delight, her Beloved, the controlling object of all her desires and aims. It leaves her no interests but his—no will for work but his—no honor or approval to seek but his, and no other Lord but Himself. She is in all her members to live for him—a bride in Him, have her home, her converse and fellowship with Him, and in all things be purely his, without spot, and blameless. This is the true and necessary purport of her sacred relation.

And now the inquiry is, How has this relation or covenant consecration of the church to her Lord, been sustained by her? Look at it in some particulars.

1. She has denounced it as a rank heresy! Although she has taken upon her Lord's name; has stood with him at the Altar of consecration, and most solemnly before heaven and earth, has covenanted to be wholly his; and by his grace and spirit assisting her, to live only for him, yet she has turned away and declared it an impossibility—the proposition of falsehood—a pledge to be broken! Nor has her Lord at all denied her the needed aid and means for it, or released her from it. His requirements accord with her vows—"Walk after the Spirit;" "Abide in me;" "Be ye holy, for I am holy." And for doing it, he has pledged her in every need, a supply of the Spirit and his own blessed fullness, kindly saying to her, "Lo, I am with you always;" "Fear not, only believe;" "My grace shall be sufficient for thee." And yet from this freely offered grace of her Lord, from his proposed in-dwelling presence, from his sin-cleansing blood, and from the proffered embraces of his perfect love, the church, his bride, has turned coldly, unbelievingly, obstinately away, and despised the holy covenant! "She has belied the Lord and said, It is not he"—nor her Lord. This is the position of the church now, in this land, with all her increased light. O, how is Christ wounded in the house of his friends! "Surely, as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord."

2. Again, This rejection in the church of her rightful Lord, has of course opened the way for other attachments. These she has eagerly sought, and has given herself basely to other lovers. So mammon, clad in golden glitter, has been welcomed to her heart in the place of her Lord. Her members could afford to forsake Christ to get riches! Often when the pomp and style and pride of life have courted her away, she has yielded to their embraces. She has oft been captivated with the goddess of pleasure, and joined the throng of her devotees, and also as the favor of man, worldly honors, and popularity have beckoned her from her Lord, she has gone after them. She has listened to the syren song of ease and self-gratification, and sunk into their arms; or, on the other hand, has plunged into the cares and business, and bustle of earth, scrambling for its trifles regardless of her Lord. Alas what object, nay what bauble of earth has not been made a rival to her Lord, even in the church herself! "Upon every high hill she has wandered, playing the harlot." "Scattered her ways under every green tree." There has she made her bed and her home, instead of dwelling with her covenant Lord! This the American church has done far more flagrantly than did Israel of old, and yet God threatened to "pour upon them his fury and his jealousy for it," and did do it.

3. But further; how has this affected Christ's interests on earth? He has a great work to be done here, very dear to his heart, in promoting that kingdom for which he died. Indeed, all the work he has on earth, is about it; and the church is appointed instrumentally to do it. Now how has this virtual divorcement of herself from Him, affected it? The answer is plain. It has caused his work to become to her a weariness and a drudgery—a forgotten out-of-the-way matter; has left Christians and the church with a multitude of separate, counter interests of their own to look after. For these they have lived, and planned, and cared, and acted, not for Christ, as the early Christians did. They have come to feel that his work and interests were one thing, and theirs quite another—that, what was done for Him, was so much minus to them. And so the church, instead of devoting all to Christ and his pleasure as truly the bride, the Lamb's wife, has been ready to filch all from him for her base parsimons! All she has he has bestowed upon her, and besides, has redeemed her with his own blood; and yet when he has wanted her wealth to carry on his work, he has had to beg it—aye, beg it earnestly at the door of his own bride! And if she has condescended to give him a small pittance, she has not done it as being his, but has called it a charity. O how must heaven hate that word, "charity" as it has been used in the church!

So when Christ's interests have called for attention and labor here and there over the earth, and he has commanded Christians and the church very expressly saying, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," that is, Go all

of you, just where my interests require you, and work for me—the general reply has been—Lord, my plans, my cares, my ease, interests and attachments will not permit. These, not Christ, have decided the matter.

And when he has said, “If ye love me keep my commandments,” “Take up the cross and follow me,” cling to me against reigning sins, against sufferings and reproaches, against principalities and powers, the fear and favor of man, and all the besetments of the world—the reply has been, Lord, it is not convenient. My name and character, my position, prospects, and living, will suffer by it; and so Christ’s honor, authority, and claims, have been disregarded, trampled under foot. Even in the lesser daily duties of the Christian in the closet, the family, the social prayer-meeting and the house of God, this same heaven-abhorred rule of “convenience,” has crept in, and Christ the Lord, in these loving calls is made to wait for almost everything else—perhaps not get attention at all. “Woe worth the day!” It does really seem that instead of studying to do Christ’s work, like the early saints, grasping eagerly after it as the only possible gain of the Christian here—our great study and effort has been to get excused from it—leave it undone! “The bride, the Lamb’s wife,” has been too much taken up with other guests to give much attention to her Lord.

4. And again, Where does all this necessarily place the church—in what connection, what service, what fellowship? Our Lord himself has decided that question. “He that is not with me, is against me.” But to be against Christ is to be with Satan. It leaves the church, then, in a virtual alliance with Satan—married to the Devil! This language may seem harsh, and I utter it with pain and grief; but the dreadful truth it declares is forced upon us, and it is of no use to conceal it. God sees it, yes the world sees it, and the church herself must see it, and profit by the sight too, before her millennial marriage with the Lamb can come. We cannot indeed, portray that beautiful union of the church with her Lord aright, or strive with success to lead her to it, without first presenting this, her most adulterous and alarming departure from Him.

But my sheet is full. I must continue this article in another number. But here let me say, with the prophet, as I close—“For Zion’s sake I will not rest, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not hold my peace, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.”

Yours for that time. L. FOSTER. Atlanta, Ill., Dec. 8, 1856.